A digest of the top business technology news stories from the past week, beginning with The Digital Hub in Dublin planning more office space for companies.
More office space planned as 70 Digital Hub enterprises now employ 900 people
The Digital Hub is planning to make additional office space available at its central Dublin campus after adding 23 new companies in 2013, bringing the total number of companies at the Hub to 70 which collectively employ 900 people.
Irish tech companies that moved to the Hub during 2013 included Silicon Republic, social gaming enterprise Bull or Bear and online video interview firm Sonru.
Multinational tech companies that joined the campus last year included e-commerce crafts brand Etsy, software firm eMaint and global digital health network Health XL.
FireEye acquires Mandiant in US$1bn deal
Cyberattack defender FireEye has acquired endpoint security player Mandiant in a deal worth more than US$1bn. The aim is to create the world’s leading threat-detection player capable of stopping attacks at every stage of the attack cycle.
FireEye pioneered the use of virtual machine technology in security with the introduction of its purpose-built virtual machine-based Multi-Vector Virtual Execution (MVX) engine.
With more than 2m virtual machines deployed worldwide, the company’s virtual machine-based web, email, data centre, and mobile security solutions provide real-time threat protection to more than 1,500 government, enterprise, and small and mid-sized customers.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates is world’s richest person – Bloomberg Billionaires Index
Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates is once again the world’s richest person, with a net worth of US$78.2bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The index is a ranking of the world’s 300 wealthiest individuals.
Most of Gates’ fortune is derived from Cascade Investment, a holding company created from the proceeds of Microsoft stock sales and dividends. Since Microsoft’s IPO in 1986, Gates has sold about US$31bn in stock and gathered more than US$7.8bn in dividends, including a US$3.3bn payout in 2004, which he donated to his philanthropic foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gates also owns about 4.3pc of Microsoft.
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